IHSS&IWA26 / BRNO / CZECHIA / 23–28 August 2026 BOOK OF ABSTRACTS 172 Travel Awardee Presentations Friday, 28 August 2026 / Hall C TA6 Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Stabilization Mechanisms Along Shading Gradients in Agri-Photovoltaic Systems John Reige Malto Bendijo1,2, Nicolas Brüggemann2, Onno Muller3, Matthias Meier-Grüll3, Nina Siebers2, Holger Wissel2, Francisco Jesús Moreno-Racero4, Laura Gismero Rodríguez4, Christoph Jedmowski3, Otávio dos Anjos Leal2,5 1 Soil Science Department, Faculty VI – Spatial and Environmental Sciences, Universität Trier, Germany. E-mail: jrmbendijo@protonmail.com 2 Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Agrosphere (IBG-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany 3 Institute of Bio- and Geosciences, Plant Sciences (IBG-2), Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH, Germany 4 Instituto de la Grasa (CSIC), Spain 5 Bioeconomy Science Center (BioSC), Germany Agri-photovoltaic (Agri-PV) systems are expanding rapidly in Europe as a dual land-use strategy for simultaneous food and energy production. By introducing structured shading and modified microclimates, Agri-PV may reshape soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks and stabilization pathways through altered moisture, temperature, and biomass return. SOC responses to Agri-PV nonetheless remain poorly characterized, and to the authors’ knowledge no published study has combined functional SOC fractionation with spatially explicit under-panel (UP) versus inter-panel gap (GAP) sampling. This study quantified bulk SOC and the distribution of carbon among functional fractions in two contrasting Agri-PV systems and their paired conventional fields. Two Agri-PV systems installed in October 2021 in Morschenich-Alt (North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany) were sampled in June 2025, four years after installation. These comprised a southfacing fixed-tilt array for horticulture (Area 2; 20° tilt, 4.3 m mounting height) and an east–west single-axis tracker dedicated for crops (Area 4; 6.0 m mounting height). Each system was paired with an adjacent conventionally managed control field of the same silt loam soil (≈5% sand, 15% clay, 80% silt) and similar long-term management. Soil was sampled from 0–30 cm at 144 points along six UP–GAP transects per field, with the control geometry mirroring the Agri-PV layout. Soil organic matter was separated by density fractionation with sodium polytungstate (1.8 g cm⁻³) using position-specific sonication
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDA4Mjc=